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CymTyr: What part of "I CANNOT AFFORD FULL PRICED GAMES" did you not get? I stated in my previous post I no longer feel badly for buying games on sale. Are you trying to start an internet fight, or just being obtuse on purpose, or had too many pints tonight?

I edited my post to say that fine, but this was not how you set out to start with, your start was :

"after reading this thread and discovering the huge profit margins on dd sales being verified, I am now more inclined to never pay full price for a game again, unless it's a classic GOG I really want.

Those guys can bitch about piracy and lack of sales all they want, but SOMEONE is making money off digital distribution, and I cannot believe it's all going to Steam and other platforms. Even a mediocre selling game via DD methods is looking to recoup development costs and create a substantial profit. "

which is not the same as saying "I can't afford it". Not being able to afford it is one thing, this stance, however, do not say so but something I think is wrong.

amok: Lets say one person needs what? $20.000 year salary to live?

F4LL0UT: Bwahahaha. Sorry, it made me laugh living in Poland and all. Actually it was rather depressing.

hah, yes, sorry. I can only count high numbers as long as they include a lot of 0's.

Aver: I don't see any sense discussing it if we don't know who said it and we don't have any proof. I can say that Steam ordered me to give them my kidney or they won't publish my game. Any anonymous statement is worthless for me.

amok: I edited my post to say that fine, but this was not how you set out to start with, your start was :

"after reading this thread and discovering the huge profit margins on dd sales being verified, I am now more inclined to never pay full price for a game again, unless it's a classic GOG I really want.

Those guys can bitch about piracy and lack of sales all they want, but SOMEONE is making money off digital distribution, and I cannot believe it's all going to Steam and other platforms. Even a mediocre selling game via DD methods is looking to recoup development costs and create a substantial profit. "

which is not the same as saying "I can't afford it". Not being able to afford it is one thing, this stance, however, do not say so but something I think is wrong.

Okay, in that case I see where you're coming from. I agree that developers need money, and I wasn't very clear with why I was saying what I was saying originally. Truce. I agree with you, but personally I can't afford full-priced games besides maybe one or two a year.

amok: I edited my post to say that fine, but this was not how you set out to start with, your start was :

"after reading this thread and discovering the huge profit margins on dd sales being verified, I am now more inclined to never pay full price for a game again, unless it's a classic GOG I really want.

Those guys can bitch about piracy and lack of sales all they want, but SOMEONE is making money off digital distribution, and I cannot believe it's all going to Steam and other platforms. Even a mediocre selling game via DD methods is looking to recoup development costs and create a substantial profit. "

which is not the same as saying "I can't afford it". Not being able to afford it is one thing, this stance, however, do not say so but something I think is wrong.

CymTyr: Okay, in that case I see where you're coming from. I agree that developers need money, and I wasn't very clear with why I was saying what I was saying originally. Truce. I agree with you, but personally I can't afford full-priced games besides maybe one or two a year.

same here. I usually plan months in advance which few games I will get at full price to help the developers survive. The rest I want I wait until it comes on a sale I can afford. It is how it needs to be, I think.

I personally think that GOG has different deals for different devs/publishers. I bet that less promising indie games has worse deal because they take spot in GOG's weekly release schedule from old games that may be more successful, so GOG has to compensate it somehow.

Overall we should leave it to GOG how they want to make a business. If GOG would be bad for devs/publishers we wouldn't have so many of them here.

Full price varies so widely, though. Most GOG games are cheap enough that it's not a big deal, I just don't buy over the budget. Regular retail games are a different story, and I almost always buy those on sale.

F4LL0UT: Can't we just let GOG do the business? I am sure that they are more qualified in this aspect than any community member here and being the successful company that they (apparently) are they can probably figure this kind of problems out by themselves. Sheesh, what is it that people always feel like telling GOG how to do business? Focus on telling them what services you as a consumer want instead of telling them how to do their jobs.

Actually, how happy the CREATOR of the games is does factor into my buying decisions. The praise Steam got from indie devs and people like Tim Schafer really helped me to accept the option.

If it is the case that GOG is cutting worse deals with the devs (and that for worse service than the Humble Store) I really have no interest at all buying any indie games here. And that interest was already very low.

GOG always uses the "underdog"/ "we are the good guys" marketing spiel. If that turns out to be wrong, I think it is the business of their customers.

Exactly so. I care about the games first and foremost. I may like a certain store and prefer to shop there all other things being equal, but in the end, it's the developer (or developer and publisher) I want my money to go to. I am loyal to developers. I am not loyal to stores. That would be just stupid.

But as I said previously, we really don't see into this at all. Almost Human said the Humble Store was the best option for them, so it was the best option for me. If someone else says they get the best conditions from GOG, I'll buy their game off GOG. It's as simple as that. I don't expect they're giving the exact same terms to everyone.

SimonG: GOG always uses the "underdog"/ "we are the good guys" marketing spiel. If that turns out to be wrong, I think it is the business of their customers.

i don't see how taking a bit larger cut than steam somehow renders this marketing strategy invalid, since gog is a lot smaller than steam and has nowhere near the numbers of sales they probably can't afford to give the same deal steam does.

Still it's a bit pointless discussing all this without having any data from other DD services and it all ends up in speculation over speculation.

WBGhiro: i don't see how taking a bit larger cut than steam somehow renders this marketing strategy invalid, since gog is a lot smaller than steam and has nowhere near the numbers of sales they probably can't afford to give the same deal steam does.

GOG was exceptionally successful with their business without indie games. If they cannot match the pricing and service quality of the Humble Store (which is a fraction of GOGs size), than they either have to change that or focus on areas where they can compete.

I'm not supporting GOG on the back of the developers for providing a sub-standard service.

amok: Lets say one person needs what? $20.000 year salary to live? lets say he is a single indie develop with no other expenses then living expenses. So he makes a game and for him to be able to live he needs to sell for at least $20.000, just to survive. So, for $20 he needs to sell 1000 copies, or for $3 he needs to sell 6667 copies. that's OK, but not all indie games sell that many copies in a year.

Now suppose he was not alone, but they are two, a coder and an artist, they now need to sell 2000 copies or 13334 copies. This is still just to survive, cost of equipment, possible licenses and so on is not even in the picture, nor renting some space, hosting etc. God forbid they are hiring in a musician....

If we now get close to AA titles, with a team, lets say a small one of 15 men each drawing a equal salary of 20.000, you now need to sell 100.005 copies at $3 or 15.000 copies at $20. This is still just to cover salary costs for the team,and the distributor takes 0%, other expanses do add up very quick.... not sure where you expect them to get the money from?

This is not how business (or life in general) works. All you've really done here is make the obvious argument that becoming a small indie developer has little chance of paying for itself, let alone making a decent profit. And guess what? That's the case with most small businesses starting out, in any industry. It's not the responsibility of the companies you deal with to ensure that your company makes enough profit for you to be satisfied, it's up to you to create a business model from the outset that will be profitable. If it isn't, you need to rethink the whole thing before getting into it.

GOG also has staff, and they also need to be paid. Did you consider that part in your calculations?

If a developer makes a good enough game to be able to negotiate a better revenue share, then great. If they can't, don't blame GOG for it.

MonstaMunch: [ This is not how business (or life in general) works. All you've really done here is make the obvious argument that becoming a small indie developer has little chance of paying for itself, let alone making a decent profit. And guess what? That's the case with most small businesses starting out, in any industry. It's not the responsibility of the companies you deal with to ensure that your company makes enough profit for you to be satisfied, it's up to you to create a business model from the outset that will be profitable. If it isn't, you need to rethink the whole thing before getting into it.

GOG also has staff, and they also need to be paid. Did you consider that part in your calculations?

If a developer makes a good enough game to be able to negotiate a better revenue share, then great. If they can't, don't blame GOG for it.

Thank you for taking this post out of context, taking extreme care of deleting the " more completely wrong calculations" which I started it with. Congratulations for missing the point in the discussion completely.

Barry_Woodward: Obviously GOG has the right to conduct their business however they see fit

and this:

WBGhiro: How gog manages their finances is a thing on which the community should not meddle. It's their business and they are responsible on their success on their own.

If gOg are getting the growth they want using their own revenue share formula, then it's not my place to tell them what to do when it comes to the behind-the-scenes details of running the business. And notably, most of us are just consumers, not actually in that business.

MonstaMunch: [ This is not how business (or life in general) works. All you've really done here is make the obvious argument that becoming a small indie developer has little chance of paying for itself, let alone making a decent profit. And guess what? That's the case with most small businesses starting out, in any industry. It's not the responsibility of the companies you deal with to ensure that your company makes enough profit for you to be satisfied, it's up to you to create a business model from the outset that will be profitable. If it isn't, you need to rethink the whole thing before getting into it.

GOG also has staff, and they also need to be paid. Did you consider that part in your calculations?

If a developer makes a good enough game to be able to negotiate a better revenue share, then great. If they can't, don't blame GOG for it.

amok: Thank you for taking this post out of context, taking extreme care of deleting the " more completely wrong calculations" which I started it with. Congratulations for missing the point in the discussion completely.

Sorry, your use of a full stop rather than a semi colon or colon had me confused, it sounded like you thought you were correcting him.